Sitting at the Doctors office yesterday in the waiting room (for over an hour) I flipped through a magazine but I was actually listening to the conversation going on just down the way from me. I wasn't eavesdropping actually. The lady talking was talking loudly enough that there was no escaping her conversation. The young man that she was speaking to got a few words in edgewise but pretty much every thing he said prompted another story from the lady. At first, it was a bit annoying but as you began to listen it was like the "train wreck you can't look away from" thing. So interesting was her conversation I wished that I had a pocket recorder and the nerve to introduce myself and say "can I just come hang out with you sometime because I find you facinating".
Over the course of the almost 45 minutes I sat there before she was called back for her appointment I learned a lot. She was 82 years "young" as she stated. The young man she was speaking to was "33" and when he said he was getting old she laughed out loud and launched into a "when I was your age" story. Her husband had died in 1973 (40 years ago) but she talked about him as if he had passed away a week ago. I found it very interesting and very touching that after 40 years she still lit up when she talked about their life together and how much she missed him. She told the "young man" that she never remarried because she knew that she could search the earth and never find another man like her "Irving". Better to live alone with the memories, she said, than to have to put those aside and start a life with someone she was sure would never measure up.
She was the youngest of 7 children and all were gone now. She started talking about each of her siblings and in the stories she told, these people came to life. You could imagine her energetic red haired sister Maureen (Mo), her war hero brother Jack who had died in Korea.
She told stories of her daddy (yep at 82 she called him daddy like she was a little girl again) taking her fishing and putting the 6 fish they caught on the stringer and when they pulled it up to take home and fry em up, a snake had eaten off the bottom half of the fish leaving only the heads. She told about the days when you could take the train from Oklahoma City to Tulsa. She talked about how no one knew how to cook real food anymore. She told the young man that she had beans and taters at least once a week and that she believed that was why she had lived so long. Lots of fiber in beans. And as for the taters, well she was pretty disgusted at what people called fried taters these days. She had the young man get out a pad of paper and write down how to make fried taters. First you pick out the firmest potatoes in the bag. Then you slice them in 1/2 then in quarters, then into chunks. When the young man asked why she told him to "hush up and listen sonny, I'm sharing a great secret here. Next you put some bacon grease which you apparently save in a jar under your sink but if you don't have bacon grease you can use crisco but not oil. Has to be the solid kind she said. Or better yet lard. You get the grease really really hot and then you put the taters in. The key she said was not to turn them until they were brown on one side and raw on the other. Then you flip them. But only once. Salt and pepper after you take them out of the skillet...oh and by the way, the skillet needs to be cast iron.
I smiled to myself as she was giving him the "recipe" and as I looked around the waiting room there were others who were smiling behind their magazines...and even on lady who had taken out a pencil and was scribbling down the "recipe".
And the point of my story is that I sat there and thought about what a resource we have in our older generation (of which I am fast becoming one) and how sad it is that they aren't respected for the wisdom and life experiences they have had. Our nursing homes are full of a generation of people who lived through the depression, and wars and the changing of our society from the I Love Lucy sleep in twin beds tv shows to shows today that depict everything imaginable. These people were around when cars didn't have seat belts or airbags. When food wasn't so complicated....no fat, no carb, sugar free, gluton free, organic, free range, soy substitutes. They had good old fashioned ledgers to keep their accounts on and when they wanted to talk to someone, they wrote a letter or picked up the telephone and spoke, not texted. They entertained themselves with tag and horseshoes and swimming in the creek and dolls that didn't poop and pee and cry and talk (except in their imagination) and toy cars that didn't require batteries, but instead required dirt and imagination.
They gathered for Sunday dinner with all their family after Church and there weren't 15 different kinds of services offered at the Church they attended. They operated on a handshake and not contracts. They relied on their neighbors and not the government when they needed a little extra help.
And in the business world, they were respected for their experience and their knowledge gained through years of loyal service and hard work. They weren't considered a liability in most cases and certainly when they retired, it was because they made the choice.
You hear it all the time and I agree "our children are the future"...but you know what? Our elders are every bit as valuable. They are living history, with knowledge that is valuable and viable even today.
When my boys were little they loved to hear stories about when I was a kid and when their grandparents were kids. Tell me a story they would say (actually they would sing as we had a tell me a story song I made up) whenever we got in the car or whenever there was a quiet moment. Most of the time I would though ocassionally I would think "can't you just go play your video game like a normal kid" lol. It is through those stories, told over and over again at their request that our family history is recorded. I expect that some day my sons will be telling their children the stories of their childhood and the stories of their grandma's childhood and so on and so forth. There's something very precious about those memories being passed down from generation to generation.
The lady at the doctors office, sadly had no children or grandchildren. She was the last of her family other than some distant nieces and nephews that she sent a Christmas card to every year. How sad it is to think that there is no one to pass on her memories too.
As she was called back for her appointment, I heard the nurse ask how she was doing. She replied, well I'm breathing and grateful for that.
I think I'll make some 'fried taters tonight". I saved the bacon grease from this morning's breakfast. I went though my potatos and pulled out the firmest ones. And while I sat (for another hour) in that holding cell (if they are gonna put you in the exam room for that long I'd prefer to be in the lobby eavesdropping) I took out a pad of paper and jotted down her "technique" and resolved to ask my daddy about some of his childhood memories when I'm in Kingfisher next time. For those stories will become stories I tell my grandkids some day.
And I encourage my friends and family to do the same. Or heck, if you don't have an elderly family member then find a neighbor to have tea with. I guarantee you'll walk away facinated...and a whole lot wiser.
Gray matters.
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